Hamas and Its Unrelenting Hatred of Israel

By John Waage
CBN News Sr. Analyst

CBN.com – Hamas just won a major victory in yesterday's Palestinian elections, but who are the people behind this terrorist organization? Just before Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, CBN News Analyst John Waage went to Gaza, and brought back this inside look at Hamas and its strong commitment to wage war against Israel.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel's planned pullout of Jews from the Gaza Strip is less than four weeks away, and the largest of the Palestinian terrorist groups, Hamas, is planning to claim victory. Here is an inside look at Hamas and its strong commitment to wage war against Israel.

They train among Gaza’s orange groves, militants of Hamas on maneuvers, looking for places to fire their Kassam rockets. They pray that the rockets will kill as many Israelis as possible. It is no haphazard drill. Hamas members check their engineering work and carefully study their maps. This one is of the Jewish settlement of Netzarim near Gaza.

For six months, Hamas has been in a self-imposed time of calm. But military experts say they have used that time to stockpile weapons and build a full-fledged army in Gaza. They are also a political force: winning so many elections this spring that the Palestinian Authority put off legislative elections this summer, for fear of losing to Hamas.

Leaders in Washington and Jerusalem would like to believe that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expanding his power base. But in Gaza, it is Hamas that has the allegiance of the people.

The problem is that Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist group whose central goal is the destruction of Israel. Hamas has killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis, and that complicates international plans to forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mohammed Rants is the son of one Hamas founder, whom the Israelis targeted and killed last year. Rants said Israel's planned pullout from Gaza this summer is a victory for Hamas terror tactics.

“The withdrawal didn't come through the agreements, but it comes by the blood of the martyrs and leaders, and the weapons of the resistance that makes the Jews think about withdrawing from Gaza,” he said.

Mohammed Rantisi's mother wears the white widow's veil to mourn her husband, former Gaza Chief Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. She has become a political force. She lifts up the Muslim martyrs and scoffs at the idea that Palestinians can negotiate with Jews.

“Hamas won't have any contact with Israel unless Hamas has the strength to force Israel to fulfill its demands,” Mrs. Rantisi claims.

She believes that Hamas is following the path of Mohammed the prophet, which gives Hamas the moral high ground in its struggle to supplant the Palestinian Authority.

Gaza and West Bank residents know about the corruption under Yasser Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas supporters are Gaza's poorest, people who suffer most from the staggering 50-percent un-employment rate. Hamas also recruits heavily among the young, who attend Hamas-run schools and camps.

Some Gaza children wear T-shirts with the picture of Sheik Yassin, another Hamas founder killed by Israel last year.

They look to women like Ohm Mohammed Farhat, the “godmother of suicide bombers,” for inspiration. Two of her six sons died fighting Israel, and she is ready to give more sons to the cause.

“If I had one hundred (sons),” Farhat said, “I wouldn't hold them back from Allah.”

As a dedicated Hamas mother, she sends out other young men to be suicide bombers.

“We are ready to sacrifice with our sons, money, everything - and ourselves. What is important is to get back our right to Palestine as Muslim soil, and to get it back from the Jews,” Farhat asserts.

The Hamas threat to Israel weakened last year, with Israel's targeted strikes against its leaders. Now the new leaders say Israel's attacks backfired.

“Hamas is strong, and targeted assassinations made Hamas stronger, and made the Palestinian people embrace the resistance,” said Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zahree.

Now as Israel pulls back from Gaza, it must contend not only with a disciplined Hamas ready to take over the Gaza Strip, but also with more radical groups such as Islamic Jihad, who train to kill and make a mockery of U.S. aid to the Palestinians.

Israeli leaders say their coming pullout is not a retreat under fire, but Hamas has made 30,000 uniforms for a victory party on the day the Israelis are gone.

If there is a diplomatic solution ahead in the road map between Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah, it is difficult to see it from the Gaza Strip.

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